By Steve Davies
Healthy Planet Columnist
So, recently I started to do what I’d like to think is an annual house cleaning by recycling what I can but, unfortunately, throwing out what I can’t. It always feels good going through the house and getting things organized by cleaning but, at the same time, it’s also hard.
It also just hit me really hard the other day when I was throwing out old sandwich bags. Now I knew they were eventually going to get to a point where I can no longer use them, but still it was hard.
As I’ve talked about before here, I come from a family that has recycled for almost as long as I can remember but, it was also that same day that I started to think about all the trash I’ve produced over my lifetime and while I know I can’t go back and change things, I know what I can do is help to educate others on those three R’s.
That said, I think it’s the first R, that of reducing that is the hardest. We live in a world where it’s so easy to get caught up in buying more and this comes from someone who hasn’t always had a lot of money. I know that over the years, I’ve enjoyed spending what little money I have on myself when life has been good.
What I eventually learned was, if I’m going to buy something for myself, the least I could do was follow the second R by buying what I needed and I think that really began to be ingrained when my kids were born. I can’t tell you the number of times I was out shopping for myself when I suddenly found something that they would like, with toy animals in particular.
Anyway, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve finally gotten to a point where I buy most of what I need if I can, be it dishes, furniture, clothes and especially books, used. As a former librarian, I love going to the library to check out books but, to be honest, I also love buying books too. I only wish I would have learned to do this all those many years ago.
I guess that’s why I’m writing about this now. I know for many people these days, it seems buying used is popular and to me that’s good. It’s being able to do two of the three R’s at the same time by reducing and reusing. Now with this article written, I guess I’ll get back to cleaning. After all, I’m certainly feeling much better about cleaning now.
For questions about recycling email me at thprecycler@yahoo.com